Harvest
When to pick courgettes and marrows
The short answer
Pick courgettes small, at 10 to 12.5cm long, and pick them often: regular picking keeps the plant cropping for longer. A courgette left to grow becomes a marrow. Cut marrows at 20 to 30cm to eat straight away, or leave them to ripen in the sun until the skin is hard if you want to store them. Take the last ones before frost.
Courgettes and marrows are the same kind of plant picked at different sizes. The skill is keeping up: a courgette missed for a few days in warm, damp weather is suddenly a marrow.
When it's ready in the UK
Courgettes are tender plants, planted out after the last frost. RHS gives no harvest months on its courgette page. Garden Organic's growing sheet averages 10 to 14 weeks from sowing to harvest; Vercro's catalogue counts about 8 to 10 weeks from planting out.
Marrows crop from mid-summer, and RHS takes the last of them before any frosty weather arrives.
| Window | J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Courgette: sow indoorsApril to May | January: no | February: no | March: no | April: yes | May: yes | June: no | July: no | August: no | September: no | October: no | November: no | December: no |
| Courgette: sow outsideMay to June | January: no | February: no | March: no | April: no | May: yes | June: yes | July: no | August: no | September: no | October: no | November: no | December: no |
| Courgette: plant outMay to June | January: no | February: no | March: no | April: no | May: yes | June: yes | July: no | August: no | September: no | October: no | November: no | December: no |
| Courgette: harvestJune to October | January: no | February: no | March: no | April: no | May: no | June: yes | July: yes | August: yes | September: yes | October: yes | November: no | December: no |
Months from Vercro's crop catalogue, the data the Vercro app plans with. It allows about 8 to 10 weeks from planting out to the first harvest. Weather, variety and where you garden move every one of these.
192 UK gardeners had recorded courgette in Vercro by 19 September 2026. What Vercro gardens are growing.
How to tell it's ready
How to harvest
- Cut, don’t pull, using secateurs or a knife.(RHS, Garden Organic)
- For marrows, cut through the stem once they reach the size you need.(RHS)
- Picking flowers? Take the male flowers, the ones without a small fruit behind them, so you don’t reduce fruiting.(RHS)
What moves the date
- Warm, damp weather can make the fruit grow very fast.(RHS)
- A cool early summer. Plants may produce no fruit, or the fruits rot when very small, because of poor pollination. It usually sorts itself out once the weather improves.(RHS)
- Frost ends the season. Courgettes and marrows are tender plants.(RHS)
If you leave it too long
After picking
- Stored marrows keep a month or two somewhere cool, dark and frost-free.(RHS)
- Leave marrows for storing longer on the plant, so the skin toughens.(Garden Organic)
Where the sources differ
Two good sources, two answers. We show both rather than picking the convenient one.
| Question | RHS | Garden Organic |
|---|---|---|
| Courgette size | 10 to 12.5cm long. | 10cm long. |
| Marrow size | 20 to 30cm to use straight away. | 20cm long. |
Keep a record of what each bed gave
Log what you pick, and how much, bed by bed. Vercro keeps the record, so next year you know what worked where, and Today shows what your crops need next.
Keep going
Where this comes from
Crop windows, growing times and plant families come from Vercro's own curated crop catalogue, the same data the Vercro app uses. Where a published source says something different, we show both rather than choosing the convenient one. Reviewed 19 September 2026.
- Courgettes: grow your own, Royal Horticultural Society. Read 19 September 2026.
- How to grow marrows, Royal Horticultural Society. Read 19 September 2026.
- Courgette and marrow, Garden Organic. Read 19 September 2026.
- Courgette and marrow growing sheet, Garden Organic. Read 19 September 2026.